YogaH Karmasu KaushalaM - (Yoga is Skill in Action)

योगः कर्मसु कौशलं
(Yoga is Skill in Action)

During boyhood days Anna and myself played "You follow my orders " (Something like the more familiar game of Statue! If I say "Statue" Anna had to freeze into any position he is in. He could move only when I cancelled my order.) When he is sitting for eating, I would say - Eat. Well, he was bound to eat, breaking my order and giving me a point to my credit. Or wait for a long time until I canceled my order. Fun was when one ordered Do not go when the other is hurrying to the toilet. Destiny plays with us.

Destined work will go on whether you will it or not, whatever you do to change the course. You put up a dam and the flowing river rises in level.

You cannot avoid breathing. And breathing is one of thousand actions which get done automatically. All actions, all works are involuntary and simultaneously compulsorily forced on you.

You are free however to isolate yourself both during progress of work and from reacting to the results of the work. That is the skill required. It is called Yoga attitude.

See the tongue moving involuntarily between teeth skillfully and moving the food this way and that way and finally pushing it down the throat. Or again hear RaamakruShNa - at the pounding device when rice is pounded into beaten rice, the woman skillfully pushes the rice this way and that way so that all rice is evenly and equally flattened into beaten rice. This she does with one hand. Her child is on her lap suckling. With other hand she sells and takes money. And talks to freinds present nearby. Never does her finger get under the pestle and get crushed. That is skill in action.

Skill, grace, dexterity and other words used to explain work well done. But the Lord talks of the skill is the attitude during the work, about the action which is on and the results expected.

RaamakruShNa said - Apply oil on your hands before you open a jackfuit. Enjoy eating without hands getting stuck up in the deeku (sticky sap). Vairaagya and detachment make you free to enjoy life withoiut getting stuck up in the ups and downs in life.

You have children. Vairaagya and detachment would mean denying children their rightful love from parents, we believe. No, it is not so. You are free to play with them, enjoy their company. Make them worthy to be acceptable to the society and by such service to the society make them acceptable to God. Ultimate test is acceptance by God i.e. mukti.

Vairaagya is offering the best fruit to God. A good son or daughter is the best fruit you can offer. He gives you the children, you have to return them to Him fully matured. No egostic feeling - my child, best in the world, IAS, millionaire. These are trinkets not worthy to crave for forgetting God in material success.

You have a job at hand. Apply yourself fully to it. Everything is God's work. He will 'pay' you for your work. What the employer pays you is not important. Take employer as God's agent and respect him for that but don't be a slave to him for a higher increment or promotion.